


The Value of a Man

by Llama1412



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bruises, Caffeine Addiction, Caffeine Withdrawal, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Families of Choice, Gen, Interrogation, Negotiations, Politics, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29207784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: When Iorveth finally defeats Roche, he decides that such a valuable prisoner is worth ransoming back to the King. After all, surely the King's Enforcer is worth a few concessions to elven rights.Right?
Relationships: Blue Stripes & Vernon Roche, Iorveth & Scoia'tael (The Witcher), Iorveth & Vernon Roche
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. The Set Up

**Author's Note:**

> Did I start another new fic? Yeah, sorry not sorry. The premise of this fic was actually inspired by an Avatar the Last Airbender fic. If you like atla, I highly, highly recommend checking out [MuffinLance's Salvage](https://href.li/?https://archiveofourown.org/works/21116591/chapters/50249441) (and the rest of their work)! Written for [this prompt](https://promptsforthestrugglingauthor.tumblr.com/post/642212126497390592/writing-prompt-1481)

“Oh how the mighty have fallen,” Iorveth smirked, as the face below him curled into a resistant sneer. This was one man who would not beg for mercy.

That was fine. Iorveth didn’t intend to show him any.

“Don’t worry,” Iorveth grinned. It was not a nice grin. “The worst is yet to come.”

With that, he used the hilt of his sword to knock out his new captive. Vernon Roche, Commander of the Blue Stripes and Enforcer of King Foltest, had been captured. Today was a great victory.

* * *

The Scoia’tael did not typically take prisoners, and for good reason. They had no real place to  _ put _ prisoners. Leading their captive back to their home base would be foolish. On the off change he managed to escape, he would  _ know where they were.  _ And even if he didn’t – well, Roche didn’t really need to know  _ anything _ more than what he already did.

Which was how Iorveth came to be hauling a 200lbs man in chainmail up a tree. Or trying to, anyway. Humans were  _ heavy,  _ and while their home base, Aindeoin, had mechanisms to lift supplies and people into the trees easily, Iorveth was hardly going to risk bringing  _ Roche _ there. Which meant he was stuck using a temporary camp a short distance into the forest with only a handful of his Scoia’tael present.

If only any of his damned Scoia’tael would  _ help him with this heavy fucking human. _

“Sylvar!” he snapped. “Stop cackling and help me get him secure before he wakes up.”

“Aye aye, Boss,” Sylvar said, amusement rich in his tone. “You just looked so determined to do it yourself.”

Iorveth snarled something not repeatable in polite company (not that there was any), and when Sylvar jumped down to land on the ground in front of him, Iorveth shoved Roche at the elf. Let  _ him _ try to carry the man up a tree by himself.

Sylvar yelped, flailing as he tried to catch Roche’s dead weight – and only managed in toppling to the forest floor, Roche sprawled on top of him. 

Iorveth was not the only one to laugh, which meant there were  _ more _ people who were here and hadn’t bothered to help him. He would have them all cleaning the latrines, gods dammit.

“All of you, get down here and help!” he barked.

Two of his elves – Taredd, his best tracker, and Kythaela, one of the heavy hitters in Maeral’s elite infantry unit – scaled down the trees and helped him haul Roche up off of Sylvar. Maeral herself, on the other hand, just frowned down at him from the top of the platform their temporary camp was built on.

As the four of them on the ground worked out the logistics of bringing Roche up and finally started to ascend, Maeral tilted her head, looking them all over.

“Finally caught him, huh?”

Iorveth grunted. He was exhausted from the fight and from lugging Roche here and did not have the brain capacity for long answers.

“So… why are we taking prisoners?”

The others stiffened, shoulders going tense, at Maeral’s words and Iorveth sighed. She was his best commander, his best strategist, and the one he trusted most to push him to face unpleasant truths. Right now, however, he dearly wished she were somewhere else.

“He’s the Commander of the Blue Stripes,” Iorveth said, as if everyone here didn’t know that. “He has valuable information – and more importantly, he’s a valuable bargaining chip. I want to ransom him to Foltest, in exchange for either ceding territory to us – not likely, but maybe Roche is worth enough – or granting rights to nonhumans. Enforcement will still be an issue, but any concession that starts negotiations would be an improvement.”

“Hmm,” Maeral tapped her chin thoughtfully. “The ransom will have to be composed very carefully. We have to show our claws while still enticing the dh’oine to respond.”

Iorveth nodded. “I want your team guarding Roche. Take his weapons and armor and use your best judgement on where to keep him. I have faith in you.” He expanded his statement to include all of them – Sylvar and Taredd and Ky and the other five members of Maeral’s unit, who had melted out of the woodwork to give wide-eyed glances at Roche. “I need to return to Aindeoin and work with my commanders to draft an appropriate ransom.”

He didn’t give Maeral direct orders, waiting to see which she would choose. Most commanders wouldn’t have so much freedom, of course, but Maeral had fought Roche often enough to know his capabilities  _ and _ she had enough diplomatic and tactical experience to contribute valuable insight to Iorveth’s planning session. He would defer to whichever one she decided – staying with her men to take the lead on guarding Roche, or coming with him for what would no doubt be a long, unpleasant meeting with lots and lots of shouting.

Maeral drummed her fingers for a long moment, eyes narrowed in thought. “Ky,” she eventually called, and Kythaela jumped to attention before her. Funny, they never jumped to attention for  _ him.  _ “Secure the prisoner on the highest level. Take his weapons and clothing and search them thoroughly. You’ll be in charge until we return.”

Ky nodded seriously, “yes sir!”

They never called him ‘sir’ either. How come Maeral got all the respect?

Not that it wasn’t warranted, but really! 

Vidar, a very practical elf who was one of the best they had at logistics, tilted her head. “Want us to leave him naked and vulnerable or fuck with his head a bit and give him elven clothing?”

Iorveth’s lips twitched. “Fuck with his head.”

The elves he was leaving to guard Roche all grinned broadly. It was slightly creepy, but also very reassuring. Roche would be safe here until Iorveth returned. They would make sure of it.

“I’ll interrogate him when I return, but pay attention to anything he says. Never know what might prove useful.”

“Aye, aye, Boss,” Ky saluted him sloppily.

Iorveth shook his head. Even if they were all little shits, Maeral’s unit was the best he had. And he’d need the best to keep Roche contained.

  
But for the first time in a long, long time, Iorveth actually felt hopeful that they might be able to suss out a  _ real _ victory from this.


	2. Roche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vernon Roche is having a very bad day.

Vernon Roche was not having a good day. It had been rough from the start, but it was only getting worse. First, PT, his medic, insisted that he needed to cut back on his coffee intake if he wanted to have a functioning heart in a decade. Frankly, Roche wasn’t so sure he’d even be here in a decade, so why should he have to suffer now?

No caffeine had  _ not _ helped his sour demeanor when his head had started pounding relentlessly, right in the middle of an important briefing. He’d been sharp with everyone, snapping at the tiniest provocation. His already slightly trigger happy temper was on an even shorter fuse, and even Silas, his best and most proper officer, managed to set him off.

Which he felt immediately guilty for, of course, because Silas’s eyes had gone wide and hurt and started filling with tears, and Roche could not handle that. He could admit that he ran away, if only to himself. He’d just – he’d needed to get away before he barked at anyone else.

Wandering into the forest wasn’t his best idea, but in his defense, he was nowhere  _ near _ at his best. Anger and agitation prickled under his skin and searched for an outlet and his head fucking  _ hurt _ and today just fucking sucked.

So of course that was the moment Iorveth had to appear. Because of fucking course his day would go like that. On a good day, fighting Iorveth took all he had. Today was  _ not _ a good day, and he knew it from the start. He was going to lose. And without his team here to cover an escape, losing meant dying. 

As he fought, he had the passing regret that he hadn’t apologized to Silas. The poor boy would hate it if that was the last memory he had of Roche. 

So he would just have to make sure it wasn’t.

Roche fought with everything he had – he fought dirty, took cheap shots, heckled Iorveth to get the elf riled up and careless, took every opening Iorveth left. Nonetheless, as the sweat dripped down his spine and his face felt flushed and overheated under his chaperon, he knew he would lose. It wasn’t a matter of skill, it was a matter of  _ stamina.  _ Because while Iorveth appeared fresh and unbothered, Roche was just about tapped out. Still, he refused to surrender. He would die with dignity, die with a knife in hand and blood on his blade.

Only Iorveth refused him even that, managing to disarm him with two swift strikes, then followed with a kick to his face that sent him sprawling in the dirt. He snarled, struggling to rise – only to find Iorveth’s swordpoint at this throat. Roche grit his teeth, staring up at Iorveth with all the defiance he could muster. 

“Oh how the mighty have fallen,” Iorveth gloated and Roche wanted to scream that this wasn’t fair, this wasn’t how it should end. They should have faced each other evenly, and if,  _ if _ Roche was defeated, then at least he would die with honor.

But the world didn’t care about his honor, and he couldn’t go back and fix his awful fucking day. How fitting, that he, who had made life tortuous for so many others, would go out after a day of pure fucking misery.

“Don’t worry,” Iorveth continued, sneering down at him, “the worst is yet to come.”

Roche held his head high, glaring up at his enemy, and an odd thought struck him. Of all the things he found unfair about today, that his last sight should be of Iorveth wasn’t one of them. But then, he’d always known that the two of them were destined to die by each other’s hands. The real shame was that he wasn’t taking the damn elf down with him.

Iorveth raised his sword and the world went black.

And then he was waking up, and his head hurt far too much for him to be dead. Which was odd, because he’d really rather expected not to open his eyes again. Though, he hadn’t actually managed that yet. The pounding in his head from earlier had increased to an overwhelming throb that made it difficult to focus on much else. Still, he slowly forced his eyes open, hissing in pain when sunlight hit his face. It took several minutes before he could actually make anything out, but eventually, the world resolved itself into… a tree? 

Yes, he appeared to be tied up with chains that looked exactly like the standard Temerian guard issued ones, only the elves had gone a step further and driven a stake through the slack between his hands and feet, nailing him to the wooden platform that really did seem to be built into a tree. That… actually answered a lot of questions about the Scoia’tael. Because he was close enough to the edge of the platform to see that it was a  _ long _ way down. Even if he managed to free himself from the chains, there was no way he was getting down from here without assistance. 

Assistance elves apparently did  _ not _ need, because before his eyes, a blonde elf in red flipped up onto the platform, landing so lightly on her feet that he couldn’t even feel it. The blonde elf walked over to the elf Roche assumed to be his guard, but then she glanced his way and visibly startled.

“Oh! You’re awake! Great!” Her voice was cheerful and sweet and it made his headache worse. What exactly was great about this?

He grunted vaguely in response.

“Do you need anything? Water? A cold compress?”

Roche blinked at her in confusion. Was she serious?

“It’s just,” she gestured at his head, “looks like Iorveth hit you pretty hard.”

“Where  _ is _ Iorveth?” he asked, curious despite himself. He would’ve assumed the elf would still be gloating.

“Around,” the woman smiled. “Sooooo, cold compress?” She held up a mass of fabric with a shrug. Roche carefully did not move. This had to be a trap.

The other elf groaned, shaking his – her? Roche couldn’t tell – head. “He’s our prisoner, Ky. Don’t offer him pain relief.”

“But why not? Until we decide what to do with him, we may as well keep him in shape, so to speak.” She took a quick step forward and placed the compress carefully over his head.

The shock of cold against his scalp told him that his chaperon had been taken. Actually – he looked down at himself with a frown. “Whose fucking clothes am I wearing?”

That they would take his weapons made sense. Taking his armor was likewise only sensible. Even taking his tunic and trousers made sense – clothes were protection. Without them, you were unguarded. Even if the light, thin fabric the elves dressed him in would do little to defend him. It was about the  _ mindset.  _ Being naked meant you were vulnerable.

But he wasn’t naked. He was wearing dark green robes that appeared to be made from some elven material. Why would they have redressed him? What was the point?

“Rhys’s,” his guard answered his earlier question. “Poor bastard took a crossbow bolt to the gut during the last fight.” Roche winced inadvertently and the elf smirked. “Oh, that’s right. He  _ also _ found his head removed by your sword. Because you dh’oine can’t even let us die with dignity.”

Hadn’t he thought something similar when he was so sure he was going to die? But whether or not he had died with dignity, Roche was wearing a dead man’s clothes. A dead  _ elf’s _ clothes. That was weird. He wasn’t sure why it was so weird, but the knowledge that he now wore the castoffs of a elf he’d personally decapitated settled strangely in his gut. 

The guard lifted their spear, poking him in the stomach. “Maybe I should show you what he felt before you beheaded him.”

“Stop it,” the blonde elf – Ky? – snapped. “Iorveth wants to question him personally. I expect him to be in the same shape he is now when that happens. Understood?”

The guard’s mouth twisted in discontent, but they nodded. “Understood.”

Iorveth wanted to question him personally? Well, of course he did. Not that he would learn anything. Roche had undergone torture before. He would endure. He had to. For Temeria’s safety, the Scoia’tael could never learn all the things he knew. They  _ couldn’t. _

He straightened his shoulders, firm in his resolve. He knew what happened to captured enemies. He would not be going home from this, not unless he found a way to escape himself. 

Somehow.

As the blonde elf left and his guard turned back to watching the surrounding trees, Roche reflected that in this case, knowing what was coming only made the waiting worse.

Which was the point, of course. Roche had played Iorveth’s role in this scenario far too many times not to recognize the tactic for what it was. Make him wait, make him stew in his own defeat until he got restless and antsy and desperate.  _ Then _ Iorveth would come to question him.

He took a deep breath. He’d been through this before. He knew he could endure. He knew that he wouldn’t break.

Now all he had to do was remind himself of that over and over again until he firmly believed it. After all, if anyone were to break him, it would be Iorveth. But he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t afford to break.  _ Temeria _ couldn’t afford him breaking.

So he wouldn’t.

The words became something of a mantra, repeated over and over in his head until he fell into an almost meditative state, waiting for what was to come.

* * *

Roche startled back to the present when a dwarf landed heavily on the platform. 

“I’ll take over for you, Vidar,” the dwarf said.

His current guard – apparently Vidar – glanced back at him with a frown. “Iorveth–”

“Iorveth will appreciate us taking the initiative.”

Vidar pursed their lips and Roche felt a cold shiver of fear drip down his spine. He knew  _ exactly _ what soldiers taking the initiative with a prisoner usually meant. Or, well, not  _ specifically.  _ There were a  _ lot _ of things it meant, but all of them were pretty fucking terrible. He swallowed hard, straightening his shoulders and glaring up at the Scoia’tael.

A beating wasn’t the worst possibility, but it still sucked. And as it turned out, dwarves kicked  _ hard.  _ He groaned, automatically curling to protect his center, but it did no good. He was chained in place and outnumbered and he felt suddenly very, very sorry for ever doing this to others, because it really, really fucking sucked.

On the bright side, Roche was no stranger to beatings. He’d grown up amongst the gutters of society and his worth – or lack thereof – had been made clear from a very early age. His body could take a lot of damage.

But there were still limits. And once the dwarf had left and the elf had gone back to guarding him by mostly ignoring him, he attempted to assess which limits he’d pushed too far. Trying to sit up was a mistake, causing his vision to grey out around the edges and the simmering agony in his veins jumped to a sharp stab in his abdomen. 

When he could move again, he slid his fingers across his middle and felt for damage. Vicious bruising, for certain. Down to the bone, no doubt. And breathing in – well, trying to – quickly convinced him that one of his ribs, at minimum, had fractured. Wonderful.

Part of him wondered how proud Iorveth would be of his subordinate for  _ taking initiative.  _ In Temeria, the guards considered it a right of passage, taking initiative for the first time. Were the Scoia’tael the same?

If they were, then he doubted his ribs would have time to heal before the next beating. 

This day just kept getting better and better.


End file.
